


Haruno Sakura: Omake

by Jememe



Series: Red Splatter on Pink [2]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: F/M, M/M, Omake, POV Alternating, but they grow to love her anyway, many people terrified of this small pink child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:47:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27946265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jememe/pseuds/Jememe
Summary: Side plots, alternate POVs and bonus scenes from Haruno Sakura: Psychopath and Saviour of the World. Like the gunk in the bottom of the pan after you fry a bunch of meat and vegetables. Its packed with flavour but not good enough to go in the sauce. Well, unless you deglaze it with wine but sometimes you just don't want the extra liquid and... wait, where was this metaphor going?
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi, Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto, Namiashi Raidou/Shiranui Genma, Shiranui Genma/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Red Splatter on Pink [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046611
Comments: 38
Kudos: 369





	1. (Kakashi POV) Because Kakashi's positive he should have never been put in charge of small children but he's going to try his hardest anyway

**Author's Note:**

> This won't have a set update schedule, I'm just going to basically post them when I feel like it and when the story allows. But I have a bunch of them to post! Yay!

Kakashi wasn’t lying when he said his first impression of the genin was terrible.

Sensei’s kid was not only an achingly painful remainder of what Kakashi had lost- all Kushina’s round faced exuberance with sensei’s colouring- but it was also abundantly clear he was a child. Immature and bratty and stubbornly sure he knew everything about the world around him all rolled into one bite sized, fluorescent orange package. An insistent, neon sign reminding Kakashi that he’d been given the impossible task of stripping away these children’s naivety and preparing them for the shinobi world, somehow without saddling them with a host of debilitating mental diseases.

The Uchiha was a headache that Kakashi could feel already burying its claws deep into the base of his skull. A twisted package of anger, hatred and arrogance that he had to somehow consolidate into an emotionally mature chūnin. Sasuke was a ticking time bomb surrounded by acid and lightning and it was Kakashi’s job to defuse it before Konoha lost the last of one of their most powerful clans.

The pink one… Well the pink one was a prodigy. Her report had been filled with glowing recommendations from just about every teacher in the academy, a long history of perfect grades and a number of internship offers ranging from cryptology to tactics. Her physical scores weren’t great, but there were multiple notations on them that suggested she’d been purposely scoring poorly in her fights. If the village was at war she would have been forcibly graduated out after her first year at the academy. As it was, she’d turned down any offers to even take the graduation exams early.

It didn’t take a genius to correlate the eight graduating clan kids and her insistence on staying in that class, but the idea of a clanless child both being aware enough of the village politics to know that was the right decision and containing the emotional maturity to follow through with that decision set off alarm bells in his head. The decision could have come from her parents, but by all reports she was fiercely independent and her parents were exceptionally supportive. Somehow, he got the sense that her parents probably didn’t even know about the early graduation offers.

Officially speaking, it was Kakashi’s job to evaluate her abilities and push her into whichever career path would suit her talents best. Unofficially speaking, there was a significant amount of council pressure to force her into a medical role. The loss of Tsunade had left the village hospitals haemorrhaging money and talent as the lack of good leadership left the staff overworked and advancements slow going. The elders had seen her intelligence and unprecedented scores in chakra control and assumed she’d be the answer to all their problems.

Personally, Kakashi thought they were idiots. One only had to look at her library record to know she had no interest in becoming a medic. The girl had been reading ‘Warring Era Infrastructure in the Land of Fire’ when he’d first entered. An exceptionally dry tome filled with far too many implicit biases to actually be informative. The kind of book one only reads when they’ve read absolutely everything else in the library twice over. And yet, Kakashi knew for a fact the girl had never checked out a single scroll from the extensive pre-medical section available to academy students. If that wasn’t a declaration of intent, he didn’t know what was.

For now he’d sit back and observe. Wait for her to announce what she actually wanted and do his best to push her towards a healthy and legal version of that. Wether or not that meant failing them after tomorrow’s bell test was yet to be seen.

Kakashi had a duty of care to these children (However unwillingly) and he’d do his best to fulfil it.

So he watched and he listened and he ignored the voice in the back of his head reminding him just how terrible Konoha’s track record with child prodigies was. He played the two boys through their predictably painful introductions and tried not to be too amused at the pink one’s carefully buried sarcasm. At the very least she seemed to respond to her two teammates with detached amusement rather than outright scorn.

The look in her eyes was perhaps a little too clinical and calculative for comfort, but Kakashi wasn’t quite ready to liken her to Orochimaru yet.

Then Pinky’s smile widened until dimples appeared in her cheeks and her eyes glistened in the exact same manner his dogs used to break his willpower and beg treats off him and Kakashi found himself mentally berating himself for even considering comparing her to that emotionally stunted creep. Pinky was something potentially far, far more dangerous.

“My name is Haruno Sakura.” Pinky started, her naturally cute voice pitched just right to be perfectly guileless and send Kakashi’s hackles bristling at a perceived threat.

He made a mental note that her acting abilities were formidable and her grasp on social queues was downright intimidating. Was this what happened when a child genius actually grew up in a loving and nurturing household?

“I like learning kenjutsu and fresh gossip, I dislike wilful ignorance.” Her eyes darted to the two boys in a sharp glance and Kakashi’s followed the motion. It was difficult to argue against her very apparent detachment from the pair when they were both so blissfully unaware of the extremely important subtext of the conversation. “My hobby is reading.”

Green eyes glanced at his satchel and _was that a threat?_ Kakashi would _not_ stand for threats against his babies. He made sure the genin was sufficiently warned against fucking with his Icha. A warning she conceded against with a slight head tilt as she continued.

“My dream is to be an ANBU captain.”

Kakashi froze for a good few seconds. This was unprecedented. It was almost inevitable that she would end up being pushed into the shadow ranks anyway. She wasn’t going to be a medic-nin and had exhibited none of the personality markers that would deem her unsuitable for work in the shadow corps so of course she would end up among them.

It was a self fulfilling prophecy. Child geniuses were pushed into a high pressure environment no matter their personal goals until they crumbled or lashed out.

But if the child genius’ goal _was_ the high pressure environment?

This was either going to end with the village in ashes or the best career ANBU Konoha had ever produced.

Kakashi sighed. He might as well ensure she was as well prepared as possible either way. He had a horrible sinking sensation he was actually going to pass these brats.

“Alright. I can work with that.”


	2. (Kakashi POV) Sage help him he actually passed the brats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh Sage now he's gone and gotten emotionally invested and really fucked over his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written and rewritten this about five hundred times. It's not even bad, I just keep getting ideas to improve it that sound great on paper but in reality lead to nothing more than subtly rewording a paragraph or two, so I'm just going to post and be done with it. Hopefully I'll be able to post the other content I have in the sidelines in a more timely fashion.
> 
> I love all of you wonderful people! Thank you so much for the support!  
> <3

Kakashi had a problem.

Well, he had a lot of problems- almost all of which centred around the three brats he’d made the horrendous mistake of passing- but he had one problem in particular that was becoming more and more bothersome the longer it refused to resolve itself.

The pink one respected him.

It wasn’t hero worship, that would have been easy to deal with- just flashing his porn, showing up a few hours late and making a fool of himself once or twice had worked wonders to wipe the stars from the eyes of angsty and sensei’s kid after he’d thrashed them in the bell test- but actual, genuine respect. The kind that acknowledged that he had flaws and was capable of making mistakes whilst still holding him in high esteem for his accomplishments.

Not only was her maturity alarming (Kakashi distinctly remembers _thinking_ he understood the ‘authority figures are fallible people too’ rule of life at her age, but he also distinctly remembers- with no small amount of bitterness- just how easy it was for Danzō to dupe him into believing the Hokage was the source of all evil in the village, simply because he was a vaguely wise sounding authority figure, and the pink one should have been far more sheltered and naive than he was at that age.) but it also wasn’t conducive to getting an accurate read on the girl.

Because she was always _on._

Sure her dry sense of humour (too dry for a twelve year old) bled through, and every now and then he’d glimpse real bewilderment or surprise before she buried it, but everything else was faked and faked _well._ Sometimes he wondered if he would have even realised what she was doing if he hadn’t seen her abilities first hand during her introduction. If he wasn’t already looking for those minuscule delays in her expressions, the way her eyes always seemed just a tiny bit off. But then he’d bury that thought process in the deepest, darkest pits of his mind because the idea of a genin her age having the acting prowess to successfully fool him was an _exceptionally_ disturbing one.

Kakashi was determined to see behind the mask and figure out what made her tick, so he’d created a fool proof plan.

The first step had been to treat it akin to hero worship. This failed, for aforementioned reasons.

The second step had been to try and get her angry. He’d started off gentle, a slight tease about her dress or her hair, and after confirming that she wasn’t going to react like a typical prepubescent girl and take the comments personally, he’d gone all out. The day had been filled with snide comments about everything from her physical appearance to her weeding technique. Frustratingly, she’d just seemed to find it amusing. And then she’d caught on to the fact that her reaction was frustrating him and subsequently found it even more amusing. It was a vicious cycle he’d been forced to tear himself out of before he lost the last, fragile threads of his sanity.

The third step had been to try and get her to resent him in some fashion. So the first few days of D-ranks to scope out what he wanted to do with the team turned into a week of D-ranks. Which turned into multiple weeks of D-ranks. Which turned into it not working at all because she’d clearly deduced that he had some kind of alternative motive to this other than simply watching them suffer and decided to forgive him for it.

Kakashi… didn’t have a fourth idea.

-

“Have you considered approaching the problem from a different angle?” Gai said, uncharacteristically serious in response to the subject manner. “I often find a rigorous workout is the fastest way to get to the core of my student’s youth!”

“Pain. That’s genius!”

“Wait, no that’s not what I…!”

-

Kakashi spent a short period indecisive about going ahead with idea four after he’d pulled her aside that first night of the C-rank.

Pinky had dropped pretences almost entirely as she’d given her report. Her face opening in a way that he hadn’t seen before as barely there expressions flittered over her features. Not for the first time he was tempted to pull out the Sharingan and see what that could discern but he held off. He couldn’t afford to put that much strain on his body in a hostile environment when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Instead he watched boredom skitter across her features as she broke down Wave country’s gang problem, concentration as she thought over her answers and slight amusement as she mused on the internal political manoeuvring of the missions desk.

Her inference that the higher ups knew about the problem and hence sent Kakashi as a guarantee the mission’s success was sound, if a bit overly cynical (whilst he didn’t doubt the Hokage knew about the bridge and political unrest within Wave and that it had contributed to the decision to send them, if he’d known just how likely they were to send enemy shinobi after them he would have sent an ANBU team disguised as a genin team instead), and the wealth of accurate information she’d pulled from thin air was impressive. But most telling was her sheer lack of concern.

There was nothing. No flicker of worry for the country or the team or the client or even herself. Instead, she seemed completely unfazed by the threat of violence. Kakashi wasn’t quite sure what to think about that but it was an observation he mentally highlighted for future deconstruction.

But then her final sentence was registering and Kakashi was looming over her, leaking killing intent and his mouth moving without any real conscious thought put into the actions.

“And how would you know if Gai is in the village?” He threatened, only for his brain to catch up to his actions and realise that he probably shouldn’t be threatening the twelve year old genin under his care. He was considering different methods of retreat from the situation when she snorted.

“Every time you two go through with one of your ridiculous challenges they become the focus of the rumour mill for days. There hasn’t been any stories of challenges in over two weeks, hence Maito Gai must be out of the village.”

And then her mouth had twisted into a smile that was entirely sadistic and looked far more like the real Haruno Sakura than anything had before it. But Kakashi didn’t have time to really consider that revelation because she was effortlessly turning his threat back onto himself and jumping at the small weakness he’d exposed to extort him and _oh no._

That was _pride._

He’d gotten emotionally invested.

Fuck.

The next few days passed with Kakashi in a mental debate with himself. On the one hand, that interaction had proven that Pinky would open up to him of her own accord and, given time, she’d relax enough to let him figure her out without any external pressure applied. On the other hand he wasn’t sure he had time and once she was a chūnin any opportunity to affect her future positively would slip through his fingers.

He didn’t want another prodigy end up like him or Itachi. Twisted almost beyond recognition by the system when one or two early interventions could have prevented that outcome entirely. He didn’t want to risk sending an unknown into such a harsh environment when he had the power to look closer and _do better._

But if he could do get there naturally then he risked making it worse by breaking through her guard like that. Losing what bare amount of trust he had could just cause far more problems in the long run.

So he wavered and he pondered and he worried.

They were attacked by a pair of chūnin and Kakashi found himself unwittingly seeing hope in the way the Uchiha threw himself before his teammates and impressed with the dedication of sensei’s kid.

Fuck.

They were going to grow on him too, weren’t they? It was like rot. Invisible particles seeping into his pores and eating away at him from the inside out. He could practically smell the tragedy sticking to the team, a sour warning to keep an emotional step away from the doomed brats, but they were all wide eyes and earnest enthusiasm. Kakashi was a Hatake. He was more human than an Inuzuka but he was also far, far more canine than any other ninja clan in Konoha. The biological urge to dote on and protect anything that vaguely resembled a pup was hard wired into his brain no matter how much he’d like to pretend otherwise.

Momochi Zabuza appeared and his thoughts were not for the client or the mission or the cool rational of logic but for the primal awareness that he would tear the man’s neck out with his teeth before he allowed him to touch a hair on his genin’s heads. It was a state of mind that would leave lesser men abandoning all logic and charging in blindly.

But Kakashi was a genius.

He formulated a strategy and executed it perfectly right up until the moment it failed because of an underestimated variable. He had to burn his chakra on an A-rank jutsu to keep breathing and swallow past the lump of utter shame in his throat as he found himself relying on his pups for protection.

It was only somewhat mollified by pride. Uchiha had recovered admirably from the downward spiral his extreme reaction to the killing intent had caused- something Kakashi would have to work to build up his tolerance to- and sensei’s kid had stuck to his resolve to not freeze up in a fight again.

Pinky’s work on her clone was impeccable. Perfect right down to the number of stitches in her dress. It didn’t have a shadow or any other physical effect on the world, but she was smart enough to make the clone stand over a darker patch of dirt and draw as little attention as possible. It wouldn’t occur to Zabuza that a genin would be capable of manipulating her chakra well enough to fool the limited sensing abilities all jōnin developed. Neither Sakura nor her clone had drawn any kind of attention to herself and as such he literally hadn’t spared them a glance.

Then there was the string technique Kakashi had subtly given his approval to use. It was insanity. If he hadn’t seen her development process as she demonstrated the various stages of her attempts he would have strongly suspected she was actually a Suna-nin well into their forties under a particularly effective henge. He’d fought alongside exulted puppet masters in the third shinobi war that didn’t have the level of chakra control Pinky was displaying with the technique. And she’d learnt it from some texts about a vaguely similar concept and a few weeks of practice.

It was becoming more and more clear to Kakashi that he was little more than her baby-sitter for the time between her graduation and her first opportunity to take the chūnin exams.

And that, in the end, is what clinched it. Sure he could take his time with the girl but the reality was that he just didn’t have any. If the village still did field promotions she would be made a chūnin immediately upon their return, it was only the insistence on the chūnin exams that led to Kakashi having any time at all with the girl.

Zabuza was defeated, Kakashi awoke in Tazuna’s house and he immediately went about assigning them ridiculous training methods. Well, Pinky’s was ridiculous, the boys was made ridiculous by a few unsubtle prods at their rivalry to drive them to take the exercise to ridiculous lengths.

He'd wound all three of them up to the point of breaking, all that was left was to sit back and watch the chaos unfold.

The boys reacted as predicted; working themselves into exhaustion, eating as much food as possible and then passing out until they’d wake up and do it all over again. Naruto became significantly more grouchy tired, like his anger was breaking through the usual layer of optimism that normally only Sasuke was successful in breaking, and Sasuke became far less introverted, unable to other-think his actions when exhausted.

He’d expected Pinky to become more childish, complain more and maybe even throw a few tantrums, but if anything she did the opposite.

The first afternoon that Pinky returned from guarding Tazuna she spent furiously glaring at Kakashi. He might have been a little worried- his extended recovery from chakra exhaustion had left him weak and barely functional, a holdover from the years of Sharingan abuse, and if she used the kawarami technique she would have a fairly good shot at nicking a major artery before he could react if she actually wanted to kill him- but she hadn’t produced so much as a whisper of actual killing intent. As it was he just found it funny how much vitriol the girl could pour into an expression even as she looked on the verge of keeling over.

The second afternoon found her having completely shut down socially. She didn’t talk at all- the most Naruto had managed to get out of her was a blank look and a slow blink- and only followed directions ten percent of the time. She ate well, if mechanically, got straight into bed when directed to her room, and fell asleep almost immediately. Not that unusual a reaction to fatigue, but not one he’d expect from someone in their preteen years.

There were, however, a few particularly telling behaviours.

The first thing was that she shied away from touch almost entirely, going so far as to vacate the room after Naruto tried to hug her, except for when Kakashi went in for a hair ruffle. After a small period of experimenting it became obvious that he was, in fact, the only person she would allow to touch her and even then exclusively on the top of her head. He’d ended up having to use a hand on her hair to direct her through the house when it had been time for bed. She exhibited no signs of panic or trauma when touched however, just a general aura of distaste, so Kakashi felt confident writing it off as just an aversion to contact. So long as she kept a good distance from the people around her she’d seemed happy to sit with them rather than vacating to sit in an empty room, so she was still showing signs of wishing to interact with others. Social but not touchy.

The second was that she would simply stare blankly forwards when Kakashi was in the room but when he wasn’t- or disguised with genjutsu to look like he wasn’t- her eyes would track the movements of people and any potential threats. Clearly, she trusted him to keep her safe. Wether that was because he was her commanding officer or because he was who he was, Kakashi wasn’t sure, but it was a nice indication that she could rely on others. Without that foundation effective teamwork would be impossible.

The third was that a crying child led to her wearing nothing but an expression of mild contempt. Sure, it was a very annoying crying child, but a crying child all the same. Kakashi mentally added ‘lack of empathy towards children’ to his mental file on the girl.

The week passed in much the same manner, which was surprising, since it suggested she was actually completing the exercises in their entirety despite the ridiculous amount of tenacity that would be required to stick to such a gruelling task. It was as confounding as it was concerning.

Normal children do not push themselves to catatonia every day. Normal children have a predisposition towards giving up and complaining when things got especially hard. Shinobi training helped to largely train that behaviour out of a person, sure, but it couldn’t remove it entirely. Without the addition of trauma normal children stayed normal children and the academy wasn’t in the business of permanently scarring their student’s minds.

Sasuke pushed himself because he was terrified of his older brother. Naruto pushed himself to prove he wasn’t the monster the villagers believed him to be. Kakashi had pushed himself to make his usually absentee father proud, and then to prove he was nothing like him and to try to erase the image of his father’s blood on his hands.

He’s not sure he wanted to know why Sakura pushed herself. She was meant to be the normal one. A prodigy, but well adjusted. On par with Sasuke- a kid with little outstanding talent but a work ethic that kept him on top of the class- physically not because she was working for it but because she was talented. As the days went by and she returned to the house more and more exhausted than the day before- as he’d finally recovered enough to hold a genjutsu for a day and observe the bridge unseen and watch her push herself through the exercise brutally and without breaks- a bubble of concern built in the back of Kakashi’s throat. Worry that something there was _wrong_ and if it hadn’t been noted on her file then nothing had been done about it and there was a good chance that it was _still_ wrong _._

He didn’t want to suspect abuse but it was hard not to when everything he’d learnt about the girl pointed to her being far too cynical and alarmingly jaded for her age.

When they got back to Konoha he’d have Inoichi look into the possibility of the traitor academy teacher having been abusing his students before he was arrested. And Kakashi would have to look into her parents.

He sighed, turned a page of his book and kept half an eye on where Pinky was successfully breaking the well known limits of the Kawarimi Jutsu as a genin.

When night came and his full recovery signalled the end of their training; Kakashi rightfully complimented them on their progress. Naruto beamed and his eyes teared up in a way that made them look even bigger and even bluer than they already were. Sasuke scowled but he also flushed dramatically pink, highlighting the adorable baby fat clinging to his cheeks. Sakura smiled a tiny, genuine smile and puffed up with pride in the same way Pakkun does when complimented.

In short? Kakashi was fucked.


	3. Raidō despairs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raidō couldn't even pretend to feel surprised, even if sometimes he really wished he wasn't so desensitised to everything Genma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quickie ;)

There were three things that Shiranui Genma doesn’t do.

1\. Privacy

2\. Monogamy.

3\. Shame.

Namiashi Raidō knew this. He knew it when he agreed to start dating the man and he’d been reminded of it every day of his life since. So when a rapid knock began sounding from the door to Raidō’s apartment and Genma’s reaction wasn’t to get out of his lap and answer it but instead to continue pulling off Raido’s shirt and only pull his mouth away from Raidō’s neck long enough to yell “It’s unlocked!” He wasn’t surprised in the least.

He was thoroughly distracted from the sound of the door opening by Genma finding his way to that particularly sensitive patch of skin under his earlobe and by the time Raidō was mentally back in the world of the living the pink kid Genma had formed some kind of instant sibling bond with was standing in the middle of his living room.

Raidō wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Genma’s self proclaimed protégé didn’t even blink twice at the distinctly adult scene she’d walked into. If anything she just looked vaguely bored as her eyes flitted over them before focusing in on Genma.

Raidō just groaned, closed his eyes and pressed his head against the back of the couch and firmly ignored the way one of Genma’s hands was fiddling with the waistband of Raidō’s pants because no matter who he was dating he _was not_ going to get off in front of a kid.

“I hit puberty.” She said, mostly just sounding bemused.

“What?!” Genma cried, voice filled with unrestrained glee. “Who was it?” Her expression must have spoken for itself because Genma _cackled._ “That bad, huh?”

“I apparently have a very inappropriate taste in men.” She said. Raidō really needed to get his finances in order. The village would not be able to handle a second smaller Genma.

“Don’t worry, Pinky-chan, big bro Genma will help you figure this out, he just has to finish up here first.”

She snorted. “Have fun, I’ll except you at the usual place in forty.”

Raidō promptly lost track of what was happening around him because Genma chose that moment to dive his hand down Raidō’s pants.


End file.
